Sawubona

Another rainy day... I guess that we are experiencing a classic Cape Town winter: gorgeous enough to sit on the beach one day and freezing and rainy the next. Becky and I took advantage of the rain today to get some paperwork done and catch up on some much needed sleep!

As our time here winds down I am feeling a mix of so many emotions.
I am excited about coming home and getting back to work at Classical with my amazing students. Being here has helped me to realize (even more!) how much I love what I do and how important and the work of public educators is. I can't wait to jump into my 4th year (whoah!) at school...

I am also very sad to leave here. In such a short time I have fallen in love with the cast of characters at the Y, the millions of amazing people that we've encountered, the views from the car on the way out of town into the Cape Flats, the changing landscape, etc. My brain is filled with so many pictures, so many poems about this amazing, impossible-to-explain city. I feel like I will be forever changed from this experience in a very different way than I have from my past trips to Cape Town. Spending time in Cape Flats, and in some ways, the experience of being able to leave Cape Flats every day and ultimately forever, has forced me to accept my self in terms of my race, my class, my gender, my place in the whole crazy oppressive cycle in ways that I have never had to think about in such intensity before. It has been a humbling, confusing, frustrating, fascinating, incredible journey...

Humans amaze me... they always have, but now more than ever. What we can tolerate, what we can overcome and struggle through, what makes us happy, and how powerful the connections between people can actually be. I am convinced that if people just stopped and actually saw one another, not just looked at, but really took the time to really see each other and listen to one another, this world would be at least a little bit better. I know that is the most simplistic and unoriginal thought of all time...but I believe it to be true.

In Zulu: Sawubona (used for good morning, good night, general greetings) is literally interpreted as "I see you"... "I recognize you as a person"... pretty intense.

On that note... Be well!
Much love, Susannah